“Only with the Help of Others Could One Survive”: Patterns of Masculine Help for Jewish Children in Nazi Camps

Help and support for Jewish children and teens in concentration camps was provided by both
Jewish women and men. Nevertheless, the growing body of scholarly literature about camp
life focusses mainly on assumptions about "typically" female behavior that attributes care and
support solely to women. The large corpus of scholarship on gender and genocide has until
today traditionally looked at women in the context of mutual aid in Nazi camps.
According to biologistic arguments, gender was the decisive factor for help and care. In this
context, evaluations are made such as that female prisoners had behaved “better” or were
“more strongly oriented toward the collective”. These assumptions ignore the complex
structures within a concentration camp. If the reports and memories of male and female
survivors are considered equally, a different conclusion is reached. A large number of the
reports of Jewish survivors who were imprisoned as minors as “bricklaying students” in
Auschwitz I, inmates of the “Theresienstadt family camp” or the men`s camp B II d Birkenau
or Monowitz challenge these theses. Rather, child survivors remember that they experienced
assistance from both male and female prisoners.
Where Jewish men lived among men and women among women, these support services were
necessarily attributed to the respective sex. In partial camps, however, where men, women
and children lived together prisoners of both sexes stood up for the support of the underage
prisoners.
This paper will challenge dominant scholarly narratives and showcase in which spaces and
contexts Jewish male prisoners cared for the children. Thus, it will enhance the scholarly and
add an under researched aspect of masculinities in the camps. Moreover, it will illustrate –
based on Ego-documents and survivor testimonies – which motives stood behind these
initiatives.